She says much the same when she drinks it. "I wish you had drunk the water".
Ma'am, you pretty much begged me to let you drink it. No backsies.
Dalisclock plays through the Dragon Age Trilogy and makes a lot of running commentary along the way. Spoilers abound.
- Thread starter Dalisclock
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Ma'am, you pretty much begged me to let you drink it. No backsies.
It gets slightly more interesting if your Warden did Morrigan's Dark Ritual, because in that case Flemeth's appearance is tied to her calling Morrigan's son to her, much to the latter's abject terror when she sees that her son is with her mother. It adds a few more wrinkles to the encounter, both in showing other sides to both Morrigan and Flemeth, and giving much greater weight to the latter's cameo, as she evidently needed the soul of the old god for...some unknown purpose.
Plugging away at the Jaws of Hakkon DLC for the past few days. When the game suggests being at level 20 to start this it fucking means it because I arrive in the Frostback Basin, look around the base I start in and then notice there's a rift right outside the base, so I go to close it as a matter of course and fucking wipe within a minute. Yeah, this area does not fucking mess around and there are some demons that spawn in that rift that I rarely see in this game(I think some of them are degraded bosses). After some weapon and armor crafting I head back and have an easier time, so maybe that rift is harder then the rest? Though at one point I bump into a bunch of L30 despair demons which I nope the fuck out of being at L21 at that point.
Overall, it's a pretty new area though wierdly tropical looking, which feels wierd because it's far to the south of the map and thus should be pretty fucking cold....and everyone who lives there is bundled up so maybe it is cold and doesn't look like it? I'm getting mixed signals here. Also, the Avaar enemies(the JAWS OF HAKKON) in this region carry magical ice weapons that hit hard.
There's not a ton of real interest but I'm getting some good loot and leveling a bit faster then I have been. Also, there's a clan of Avaar with a town/hold to learn more about their society which seems to be the main draw here. They seem to be celtic who worship the spirits as gods and use shaman for this purpose. They also practice sky burial and have a clan bear for a mascot. It's kinda interesting but not quite as much as the main game. I'm presumably here looking for info on the first inquisitor but so far haven't found much that really interests me on that front, which is sad because Archeology should be my jam and I enjoyed "Heaven's Vault". I'll probably wrap up this DLC pretty soon and move onto the Descent, which apparently is a run through the deep roads.
The fact it's basically a new area with some new quests is why I haven't said much and while the area is pretty and there is work put into it, it doesn't feel like there's much here that couldn't have just been another part of the base game like the Emprise du Lion or something. I got it part of the GOTY edition so why not see what there is? Also apparently the DLC are all Endgame content so better loot and higher levels don't hurt.
Overall, it's a pretty new area though wierdly tropical looking, which feels wierd because it's far to the south of the map and thus should be pretty fucking cold....and everyone who lives there is bundled up so maybe it is cold and doesn't look like it? I'm getting mixed signals here. Also, the Avaar enemies(the JAWS OF HAKKON) in this region carry magical ice weapons that hit hard.
There's not a ton of real interest but I'm getting some good loot and leveling a bit faster then I have been. Also, there's a clan of Avaar with a town/hold to learn more about their society which seems to be the main draw here. They seem to be celtic who worship the spirits as gods and use shaman for this purpose. They also practice sky burial and have a clan bear for a mascot. It's kinda interesting but not quite as much as the main game. I'm presumably here looking for info on the first inquisitor but so far haven't found much that really interests me on that front, which is sad because Archeology should be my jam and I enjoyed "Heaven's Vault". I'll probably wrap up this DLC pretty soon and move onto the Descent, which apparently is a run through the deep roads.
The fact it's basically a new area with some new quests is why I haven't said much and while the area is pretty and there is work put into it, it doesn't feel like there's much here that couldn't have just been another part of the base game like the Emprise du Lion or something. I got it part of the GOTY edition so why not see what there is? Also apparently the DLC are all Endgame content so better loot and higher levels don't hurt.
Mmm...you remember how I said that the available information pointed to a pretty earthshaking conclusion? (Probably best read after Tresspasser, so I'm going to leave it spoilered)
"The Veil did not exist and the elfhen walked freely in the land of dreams"
"They built entire cities that transcended dimensions"
"imagine spires of crystal twining through the branches, palaces floating among the clouds"
"beings who lived forever, for whom magic was as natural as breathing"
"Fen'Harel created the Fade, and the Evnauris were permanently locked away in the realm of dreams"
"Thousands of years before the Chantry..."
Put that together for a minute. Is there a particular floating city that you can think of that exists in the Fade? Some El Dorado of promised wonders, which mythology says was home to the gods themselves, both always visible and always out of reach? Something that might then be mythologized and syncretised into a story that better fit the new dominant religion?
"They built entire cities that transcended dimensions"
"imagine spires of crystal twining through the branches, palaces floating among the clouds"
"beings who lived forever, for whom magic was as natural as breathing"
"Fen'Harel created the Fade, and the Evnauris were permanently locked away in the realm of dreams"
"Thousands of years before the Chantry..."
Put that together for a minute. Is there a particular floating city that you can think of that exists in the Fade? Some El Dorado of promised wonders, which mythology says was home to the gods themselves, both always visible and always out of reach? Something that might then be mythologized and syncretised into a story that better fit the new dominant religion?
But there's a further wrinkle.
Lore has it that Fen'Harel imprisoned the Creators in the heavens and the Forgotten Ones in the Abyss. Tell me...can you think of some ancient 'gods' that lie slumbering in the depths? That perhaps communed with people in the Fade and bade them seek out the aforementioned city, for some reason?
As an additional odd wrinkle, consider that Mythal has shown a proclivity for transforming into a dragon. Now, with that in mind, let's ask two questions: 1) Why did the old gods want to get into the Black City? And 2) Why does the corruption that came from that incursion compel the monstrosities it creates to seek out the old gods?
And to venture a bit further into 'thumbtacks and strings' territory, it may or may not be significant that of the nine members of the Elvish pantheon, the only two we are known to have encountered are Mythal and Fen'Harel, who were not imprisoned by the latter, leaving seven that are presumably locked away. And there just so happen to have been seven old gods...curious coincidence, isn't it? That the 'old gods' locked in their eternal slumber number the same as the Elven 'gods' who are trapped forever in the realm of dreams?
As an additional odd wrinkle, consider that Mythal has shown a proclivity for transforming into a dragon. Now, with that in mind, let's ask two questions: 1) Why did the old gods want to get into the Black City? And 2) Why does the corruption that came from that incursion compel the monstrosities it creates to seek out the old gods?
And to venture a bit further into 'thumbtacks and strings' territory, it may or may not be significant that of the nine members of the Elvish pantheon, the only two we are known to have encountered are Mythal and Fen'Harel, who were not imprisoned by the latter, leaving seven that are presumably locked away. And there just so happen to have been seven old gods...curious coincidence, isn't it? That the 'old gods' locked in their eternal slumber number the same as the Elven 'gods' who are trapped forever in the realm of dreams?
Food for thought, but as I alluded to before, this is as of yet unproven inference.
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FInished the Jaws of Hakkon DLC. It does pick up after getting into some of the meatier parts of the DLC, like actually finding traces of Inquisitor Ameridan in the ruins and following the trail around the map. Basically, what's revealed is that the Jaws of Hakkon Avaar(the OG, not these new guys) bound the god of war/fighting Hakkon into a dragon and Ameridan came down to kill it to protect the world at the time. The older inquisitor managed to seal the dragonHakkon within the old fortress but not actually kill it and at the end you need to finish the job. And it's kind of interesting that it plays into the Avaar belief that souls/spirits/gods can be trapped in physical bodies, like Hakkon, and killing it basically releases the spirit to be reborn, and because Hakkon was trapped in a dragon but never killed, he's still bound to the physical plane. Thus the Avaar have no problem aiding you in killing Hakkon because you're basically doing their god a favor....also keeping it from rampaging through the lands as a dragon, which is also good.
There's some interesting worldbuilding with the Avaar here which is kinda cool and learning he story of the first inquisitor is cool even if it takes a while to really get going. Basically learning that the first Inquisitor was actually an Elf Mage and his identity was pretty much whitewashed by the chantry retroactively. Also I actually get to meet him because sealing the dragon basically put him in stasis, though he dies soon after the dragon is freed.
There's a couple interesting bits of this DLC mechanically. A "puzzle" that involves sending energy in a relay across the map using statues that initially seem useless is kind of cool(though confused the shit out of me because the statues have a lever which doesn't seem to do anything when used), the finale involves a big assault on the Jaws Keep with your Avaar allies and a section of the fortress which is frozen so you need to run between big fire pits to keep warm(with a WARMTH meter the drops quickly when not near a fire). Also at the end of the quest, if you've earned the the Avaar's respect, they ask you to sit in judgement of their Bear Mascot for "allowing herself to be captured". I conscripted the Bear for the inquisition because why the fuck not? You can't give me that option and not expect to take it.
With all the big content in Jaws wrapped up(not doing more shards, don't care about yet more rifts, etc), I started THE DESCENT and that has a different tone for sure. Also a fucking beef gate in the form of a difficult fucking Ogre that reminded me of that first Ogre fight in DAO in how much it wants to fucking beat your ass. At least here I was properly leveled but man it clearly wants you to be properly leveled and equipped and the other darkspawn are also tough too. Everything like like L20 something and I think it actually scales in the DLC with your level.
Basically a bunch of huge-ass earthquakes have been hitting the storm coast and endangering a major lyrium mining operation so the Dwarves ask the inquisition for help and after taking an elevator ride down into the deep roads, meet up with some Dwarf companions, a Shaper named Valta and a Legion of the Dead warrior named Renn who act as constant companions along the way. First thing after the orge are a group of the legion fighting it out at a broken darkspawn seal(destroyed by the earthquakes) which is quickly sealed with lyrium explosives.
With the tunnel sealed, things calm down a bit and a base camp is established, which acts as the hub for this DLC, acting much like one of the captured keeps in the base game. Crafting stations are set up and there's even a separate version of the war table used exclusively for operations in the deep roads and the.....unknown abyss(oh boy). It's a cool implementation of ideas already in the base game and I think it's partially to maintain the immersion of not having to run back to skyhold to upgrade equipment or sell off vendor trash(also the store at the base camp has a very good selection of rare material, much of it in infinite quantities). It looks like it can slowly be upgraded, like salvaging eons old barrels of dwarven beer for the camp and....you know what, fine, I guess beer can last that long. A wizard did it or something.
I get a proper introduction to Valta and Renn and realize why Renn's Voice sounds so familiar....because it's SOLID FUCKING SNAKE HIMSELF(David Hayter). Yeah, this DLC just got 500% better from that alone. The whole DLC, as implied by the name, is a winding descent through the deep roads with the occasional fast travel point and elevators to lower levels(I do appreciate how Dorian mentions "Anyone want some music for the ride?" which feels like a ME reference), which the expectation of returning to base camp to restock and heal up once fast travel points have been unlocked. So a big dungeon crawl other rather then a new region and I'll admit I like the Deep Roads here(and in DA2) a lot more then their initial version in DAO. Mostly because the level design is more interesting(visually for sure) and they feel more....like a real place people lived I guess?
Anyway, 1 DLC down, 2 to go.
There's some interesting worldbuilding with the Avaar here which is kinda cool and learning he story of the first inquisitor is cool even if it takes a while to really get going. Basically learning that the first Inquisitor was actually an Elf Mage and his identity was pretty much whitewashed by the chantry retroactively. Also I actually get to meet him because sealing the dragon basically put him in stasis, though he dies soon after the dragon is freed.
There's a couple interesting bits of this DLC mechanically. A "puzzle" that involves sending energy in a relay across the map using statues that initially seem useless is kind of cool(though confused the shit out of me because the statues have a lever which doesn't seem to do anything when used), the finale involves a big assault on the Jaws Keep with your Avaar allies and a section of the fortress which is frozen so you need to run between big fire pits to keep warm(with a WARMTH meter the drops quickly when not near a fire). Also at the end of the quest, if you've earned the the Avaar's respect, they ask you to sit in judgement of their Bear Mascot for "allowing herself to be captured". I conscripted the Bear for the inquisition because why the fuck not? You can't give me that option and not expect to take it.
With all the big content in Jaws wrapped up(not doing more shards, don't care about yet more rifts, etc), I started THE DESCENT and that has a different tone for sure. Also a fucking beef gate in the form of a difficult fucking Ogre that reminded me of that first Ogre fight in DAO in how much it wants to fucking beat your ass. At least here I was properly leveled but man it clearly wants you to be properly leveled and equipped and the other darkspawn are also tough too. Everything like like L20 something and I think it actually scales in the DLC with your level.
Basically a bunch of huge-ass earthquakes have been hitting the storm coast and endangering a major lyrium mining operation so the Dwarves ask the inquisition for help and after taking an elevator ride down into the deep roads, meet up with some Dwarf companions, a Shaper named Valta and a Legion of the Dead warrior named Renn who act as constant companions along the way. First thing after the orge are a group of the legion fighting it out at a broken darkspawn seal(destroyed by the earthquakes) which is quickly sealed with lyrium explosives.
With the tunnel sealed, things calm down a bit and a base camp is established, which acts as the hub for this DLC, acting much like one of the captured keeps in the base game. Crafting stations are set up and there's even a separate version of the war table used exclusively for operations in the deep roads and the.....unknown abyss(oh boy). It's a cool implementation of ideas already in the base game and I think it's partially to maintain the immersion of not having to run back to skyhold to upgrade equipment or sell off vendor trash(also the store at the base camp has a very good selection of rare material, much of it in infinite quantities). It looks like it can slowly be upgraded, like salvaging eons old barrels of dwarven beer for the camp and....you know what, fine, I guess beer can last that long. A wizard did it or something.
I get a proper introduction to Valta and Renn and realize why Renn's Voice sounds so familiar....because it's SOLID FUCKING SNAKE HIMSELF(David Hayter). Yeah, this DLC just got 500% better from that alone. The whole DLC, as implied by the name, is a winding descent through the deep roads with the occasional fast travel point and elevators to lower levels(I do appreciate how Dorian mentions "Anyone want some music for the ride?" which feels like a ME reference), which the expectation of returning to base camp to restock and heal up once fast travel points have been unlocked. So a big dungeon crawl other rather then a new region and I'll admit I like the Deep Roads here(and in DA2) a lot more then their initial version in DAO. Mostly because the level design is more interesting(visually for sure) and they feel more....like a real place people lived I guess?
Anyway, 1 DLC down, 2 to go.
Made it to 2nd base camp in the Descent, which seems to be hung over a very dark abyss to which there is a helpful elevator leading into. Hooray! To get here I traipse through a few scattered Darkspawn encounters but at the end there's this big prolonged battle in an abandoned Thiag which progress is measured in waves and triggered by killing Alpha critters(including an Alpha Emissary of all things, good fucking good). So that was "fun".
Not much to report beyond that but there are some details that are bothering me about the dlc and the game in general. I'll list them in no particular order.
1.) So along the route down here there are a number of locked doors which require X number of gears to fit into the mechanism and then pull a lever to open. The gears are scattered somewhere nearby(and a number are still attached) but beyond a gameplay level.....why? I mean, if the gears are to lock the doors why have a level merely open it instead of a key? And why are the gears on one side of the door with the level instead of the side that's supposed to be locked? Presumably they're there to act as darkspawn seals but some of the doors are just storage rooms and such and don't seem to need such elaborate mechanisms.
2.) in one of the locked rooms with the gears, there's a old campsite with some wagons and corpses from a long time ago, which apparently got locked in and starved or something because there's no lever on the side they're on. Also, even weirder....there are lit torches in the room...that has been sealed for centuries at this point(there's a number of reasons that makes no fucking sense). Like there are torches all over the place, burning happily away but can't darkspawn see in the dark? Why do they need torches? I realize for gameplay reasons but wouldn't it be better if you had to light the torches as you went down? (I'm not even getting into the factor torches don't burn for very long. Like 30 minutes, tops).
3) the big Room you start the battle in with the darkspawn horde has a big raging fire in it. For no fucking reason I can think of and I have no idea what it's burning because the room is made of stone. Like I know it's cool and all but why? how? What was the point of this bioware? It doesn't even factor into the battle really at all.
4.) While I really appreciate Bioware creating Unique locations for events to happen and make the world feel like more then 5 streets a cave, a basement, a different cave and a warehouse, DAI seems to have went a bit far in the opposite direction. Take Skyhold, for example: There are parts of Skyhold that either seem to serve no purpose or are so incredibly cosmetic as to be annoying.
There's a library in the basement of Skyhold with a giant tome in the middle, covered in cobwebs. As far as I can tell, this room is never mentioned or used for anything during the entire game. It exists purely for the reason of existing. You can't interact with anything in it nor mention it to anyone. There's parts of Skyhold that never get repaired during the renovations. Notably the hallway between Josephine's Office and the room the war table is has big chunks missing from the right hand wall and it stays that way for the entire game. The prison downstairs has a room that's basically on the verge of falling off the mountain and it never gets repaired or sealed off or anything, it's just there and there's one guard down there guarding like nothing the entire game. I guess if you keep certain Sit in Judgement people in prison there' some livelihood to it but as it stands now it's kind of there. Same thing with the jail under the Haven Chantry which doesn't seem to serve any purpose at all that I can tell because Sit in Judgement doesn't happen until after you lose Haven for good.
And the cosmetic additions to skyhold don't seem to change much of anything. The garden upgrade adds like 6 flower pots to grow plants in and the courtyard upgrade to add in infirmary adds like a single tent. Which just feels sad considering the inquisition has like thousands of people but only has one fucking doctor and 3 tents to serve all of them when they get hurt.
As much work went into Skyhold, it's so weird there's parts of it that serve like no fucking purpose or look like they should be don't.
Not much to report beyond that but there are some details that are bothering me about the dlc and the game in general. I'll list them in no particular order.
1.) So along the route down here there are a number of locked doors which require X number of gears to fit into the mechanism and then pull a lever to open. The gears are scattered somewhere nearby(and a number are still attached) but beyond a gameplay level.....why? I mean, if the gears are to lock the doors why have a level merely open it instead of a key? And why are the gears on one side of the door with the level instead of the side that's supposed to be locked? Presumably they're there to act as darkspawn seals but some of the doors are just storage rooms and such and don't seem to need such elaborate mechanisms.
2.) in one of the locked rooms with the gears, there's a old campsite with some wagons and corpses from a long time ago, which apparently got locked in and starved or something because there's no lever on the side they're on. Also, even weirder....there are lit torches in the room...that has been sealed for centuries at this point(there's a number of reasons that makes no fucking sense). Like there are torches all over the place, burning happily away but can't darkspawn see in the dark? Why do they need torches? I realize for gameplay reasons but wouldn't it be better if you had to light the torches as you went down? (I'm not even getting into the factor torches don't burn for very long. Like 30 minutes, tops).
3) the big Room you start the battle in with the darkspawn horde has a big raging fire in it. For no fucking reason I can think of and I have no idea what it's burning because the room is made of stone. Like I know it's cool and all but why? how? What was the point of this bioware? It doesn't even factor into the battle really at all.
4.) While I really appreciate Bioware creating Unique locations for events to happen and make the world feel like more then 5 streets a cave, a basement, a different cave and a warehouse, DAI seems to have went a bit far in the opposite direction. Take Skyhold, for example: There are parts of Skyhold that either seem to serve no purpose or are so incredibly cosmetic as to be annoying.
There's a library in the basement of Skyhold with a giant tome in the middle, covered in cobwebs. As far as I can tell, this room is never mentioned or used for anything during the entire game. It exists purely for the reason of existing. You can't interact with anything in it nor mention it to anyone. There's parts of Skyhold that never get repaired during the renovations. Notably the hallway between Josephine's Office and the room the war table is has big chunks missing from the right hand wall and it stays that way for the entire game. The prison downstairs has a room that's basically on the verge of falling off the mountain and it never gets repaired or sealed off or anything, it's just there and there's one guard down there guarding like nothing the entire game. I guess if you keep certain Sit in Judgement people in prison there' some livelihood to it but as it stands now it's kind of there. Same thing with the jail under the Haven Chantry which doesn't seem to serve any purpose at all that I can tell because Sit in Judgement doesn't happen until after you lose Haven for good.
And the cosmetic additions to skyhold don't seem to change much of anything. The garden upgrade adds like 6 flower pots to grow plants in and the courtyard upgrade to add in infirmary adds like a single tent. Which just feels sad considering the inquisition has like thousands of people but only has one fucking doctor and 3 tents to serve all of them when they get hurt.
As much work went into Skyhold, it's so weird there's parts of it that serve like no fucking purpose or look like they should be don't.
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My guess is those are either placeholder in case they wanted to more DLC or leftover from when the game was more of an MMO.
It's so weird though because the game got like 3 DLC, the last one coming out almost a year after the base game released and....I just figured they would have just patched the game around that time to fix the wall outside the war table or something?
Almost done with the Descent I think. I've reached the 3rd camp and the map shows there's only one floor below where I am now, so I assume that's the bottom.
So yeah, the Abyss was creepy to start with being super dark and claustrophobic, and then we get fucking ambushed by.....*Checks notes* Dwarves sealed in Armor with fucking Machine gun Crossbows. And they killed SnakeDwarf!So yeah, Dwarves with machine guns...who live DEEP below the deep roads.....because reasons. I'm sure there's a PERFECTLY GOOD LORE EXPLANATION FOR THIS SOMEWHERE.
The Bastion of the Pure is very awe inspiring though the fact there are Lyrium trees all over the place is kinda eerie, especially with this talk of the Titans and the fact Lyrium is alive. Yeah, I think I know where this is going.
Also, I realized why Valta's voice sounded so familiar. It's the same VA as Liara T'Soni from Mass Effect. Which should have been obvious considering Valta's job isn't that different then Liara's in that series.I'm not sure why it took me so long though I might have been distracted by David Hayter for a while.
So yeah, the Abyss was creepy to start with being super dark and claustrophobic, and then we get fucking ambushed by.....*Checks notes* Dwarves sealed in Armor with fucking Machine gun Crossbows. And they killed SnakeDwarf!So yeah, Dwarves with machine guns...who live DEEP below the deep roads.....because reasons. I'm sure there's a PERFECTLY GOOD LORE EXPLANATION FOR THIS SOMEWHERE.
The Bastion of the Pure is very awe inspiring though the fact there are Lyrium trees all over the place is kinda eerie, especially with this talk of the Titans and the fact Lyrium is alive. Yeah, I think I know where this is going.
Also, I realized why Valta's voice sounded so familiar. It's the same VA as Liara T'Soni from Mass Effect. Which should have been obvious considering Valta's job isn't that different then Liara's in that series.I'm not sure why it took me so long though I might have been distracted by David Hayter for a while.
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You're right. I just never noticed until you mentioned it.
Maybe Valta sounds more like liara?
Finished The Descent. The Wellspring had major Haligtree (Elden Ring) vibes in it's design and I do love the hollow earth thing going on down there( Where is the light coming from?). Took down the guardian without much trouble.....like a within a few minutes. Apparently it's supposed to be rather hard, so either I'm OP at level 24 or I should be playing at a level above normal(I'm not going to though). Either way, it's official, the entire wellspring is basically the inside of a titan and lyrium it's blood. Also Valta somehow got infused with lyrium and now has fucking magic?
There's a lot of implications from this and I wonder how many of them are gonna get followed up on assuming DaD doesn't shit the bed. Just the fact there probably are multiple titans under Thedas which lyrium stems from and very likely are the progenitors of the dwarves....but Red lyrium is blighted lyrium which means a titan could be blighted and oh boy that sounds fucking terrifying. Especially since we don't know what causes lyrium to get blighted or why it was deep underground until a decade ago and now it's popping up all over southern thedas(at least). It was worth playing and I enjoyed it a bit more than some of the previous deep road dungeon crawls like Golem of...whatever back in DAO.
2 down, 1 to go.
Did a manual save and went ahead and triggered Trespasser, once again set at the Winter palace. 2 years have passed(since cory was killed I guess?) and the Inquisition has been summoned to a diplomatic summit because apparently Ferelden and Orlais are getting really antsy about the Inquisition not really having a purpose anymore and also not being accountable to anyone. Also apparently everyone more or less went their separate ways for a bit and in the Winter Palace Courtyard you can wander around and talk to everyone to catch up a bit while exploring. And considering the courtyard has all the amenities of skyhold(including the wardrobe), it looks like they're serious about not being able to do anything else once starting the DLC.
I didn't kick off the events of the meeting before stopping for the night, rather opting to explore and talk to everyone. Varric was voted Viscount of kirkwall(a job he apparently hates, or so he says) but does use the position of gift land and title to the Inquisitor as well as the key to the city(which apparently controls one of the harbor chains, which he only finds out after he gives it away. Cassandra apparently was convinced by Varric the Inquisitor was getting married and kicks herself for believing it(oh those two), Blackwell is fitting in among the wardens, and Cullen got a Doggo. A good doggo!
Since I romanced Josie(don't hate) she invited the inqistor to a "special entertainment" which apparently was Orlesian theater, and the look on the Inquisitor's fact was priceless at the end "What just happened?". Apparently Orlesian theater is hard to parse without a program guide or extensive knowledge of it. So that was amusing. There's also a cool bit where the chargers are trying to present Bull with a dragon skull and want the inquisitor to distract him with small talk while they move it and it's quite amusing to watch the inquisitor ramble at Bull with a bunch of trivia(and Bull clearly doesn't care) while the chargers keep trying to move this honking big dragon skull outside.
So yeah, getting down to the end here and then I can let this thread die at last.
There's a lot of implications from this and I wonder how many of them are gonna get followed up on assuming DaD doesn't shit the bed. Just the fact there probably are multiple titans under Thedas which lyrium stems from and very likely are the progenitors of the dwarves....but Red lyrium is blighted lyrium which means a titan could be blighted and oh boy that sounds fucking terrifying. Especially since we don't know what causes lyrium to get blighted or why it was deep underground until a decade ago and now it's popping up all over southern thedas(at least). It was worth playing and I enjoyed it a bit more than some of the previous deep road dungeon crawls like Golem of...whatever back in DAO.
2 down, 1 to go.
Did a manual save and went ahead and triggered Trespasser, once again set at the Winter palace. 2 years have passed(since cory was killed I guess?) and the Inquisition has been summoned to a diplomatic summit because apparently Ferelden and Orlais are getting really antsy about the Inquisition not really having a purpose anymore and also not being accountable to anyone. Also apparently everyone more or less went their separate ways for a bit and in the Winter Palace Courtyard you can wander around and talk to everyone to catch up a bit while exploring. And considering the courtyard has all the amenities of skyhold(including the wardrobe), it looks like they're serious about not being able to do anything else once starting the DLC.
I didn't kick off the events of the meeting before stopping for the night, rather opting to explore and talk to everyone. Varric was voted Viscount of kirkwall(a job he apparently hates, or so he says) but does use the position of gift land and title to the Inquisitor as well as the key to the city(which apparently controls one of the harbor chains, which he only finds out after he gives it away. Cassandra apparently was convinced by Varric the Inquisitor was getting married and kicks herself for believing it(oh those two), Blackwell is fitting in among the wardens, and Cullen got a Doggo. A good doggo!
Since I romanced Josie(don't hate) she invited the inqistor to a "special entertainment" which apparently was Orlesian theater, and the look on the Inquisitor's fact was priceless at the end "What just happened?". Apparently Orlesian theater is hard to parse without a program guide or extensive knowledge of it. So that was amusing. There's also a cool bit where the chargers are trying to present Bull with a dragon skull and want the inquisitor to distract him with small talk while they move it and it's quite amusing to watch the inquisitor ramble at Bull with a bunch of trivia(and Bull clearly doesn't care) while the chargers keep trying to move this honking big dragon skull outside.
So yeah, getting down to the end here and then I can let this thread die at last.
I'm cautious on this one. Landings like this are notoriously difficult to stick. But yes, the implications are huge and actually make for a really interesting take on dwarves and magic.
No judgments. She was my first.
The little touches like the impenetrable nature of Orlesian theater make the world of Thedas feel more lived-in. It gives it some texture and depth that most other generic fantasy settings lack. I similarly loved the collection of different liquors you can find throughout the countryside. Some of the descriptions were hilarious.
It's done. I've finished Trespasser.
So the Council gets off to a poor start, with Ferelden and Orlais taking turns playing Good Cop/Bad Cop at the Inquisitor(though probably not meaning to) and I sympathize when the Inquisitor looks like she's trying to put her head on her desk in frustration. Luckily, what promises to be days or weeks of this is interrupted by something more interesting......MURDER. A dead Qunari is found in the Winter Palace and of course I decide to walk the fuck out of the meeting to go deal with that. He is very much a dead dude with no clue where he came from, but he did leave a convenient blood trail to a nearby room with a functioning Eluvian in it. And of course, we could secure the area and investigate and tell the council, or we we plunge on through....which is exactly what we do because fuck it.
Which narratively is the right decision because inside the Eluvian is the crossroads again, but this one is more like the fade then the one Morrigan showed me in the base game. It suggests the crossroads and the fade are heavily intertwined, and some of things found in the crossroads are suggested to be not physical objects but more abstract things like memories and ideas. For example, at one point you find a chapter of Varric's book marked chapter ???, which he says he never wrote, so apparently that includes objects that have the potential to exist....which is interesting. Also the inquisitors hand is starting to short out and it gets worse over the course of the game, to the point near the end it starts discharging constantly in energy explosions.
Anyway, The crossroads is one of the big differences this DLC has, where the hub is the Winter palace and all excursions out are done via the crossroads to different locations(and a few side locations with good loot guarded by minibosses). What it leads to are a group of Qunari who are using the Crossroads to move around Thedas quietly, working a plot to destabilize thedas using their Gatlock Black Powder by apparently planting explosives in places of leadership all over thedas....by using servants who are secretly following the Qun.
Yeah, that whole thing from DA2 how people are flocking to join the Qun(especially Elves) because they feel it would be a better life for them? And Tallis doing all that stuff for a list of Qunari spies in Orlais? Well, it turns out that's still a problem. Even worse, it turns out a lot of those Qun spies are also members of the inquisition, because when they talked about the Inquisition growing quickly with people joining from all over, nobody was really doing background checks. And to be fair, when I recruited agents out in the field, I wasn't really doing much more then "Hey, want to join? Okay then!"
So yeah, the Inquisition is possibly riddled with spies and infiltrators and to make it even better, apparently the council is kinda pissed because the inquisition didn't bother to tell them about the threat rather than saying "We got this", while under threat of disbandment. Well, technically Orlais is playing the "No, we want to keep the inquisition around.....just under supervision" which an awful lot like the Inquisition would be on a short leash held by Orlais. Josephine is keeping them at bay while I'm off adventuring but clearly she's running out of stalling tactics.
Oh, and to make things more fun, the Qunari see the Inquisitions as agents of Fen'harel/Solas and.....they've kinda got a point. Solas was tight with the inquisition for a quite a while and as revealed later, it's easy to see why the Qunari leader would see that even if it's not technically true. But generally it seems like all the craziness in the South of Thedas convinced the Qunari to make their move and prep an invasion, thwarting which ends up being the main focus on the DLC.
FInally, the Qunari plans are dealt with and they lead me directly to Solas for a goodbye. He explains(and a lot of the dlc collaborates this) things we saw in the base game that the Elven gods were basically powerful elven mages/leaders who came be revered as gods and enslaved many of the other elves(thus the dalish face tattoos). The only good one was apparently Mythal and she was killed(or most her, anyway), which prompted Solas to lead a rebellion against them. He created the veil, which trapped the elven "gods" in the fade, but the problem was the fade and the world were the same(which sounds like it was very, very different) and the entire elven civilization thrived on magic and the fade, elves truly were immortal and eluvians allowed them to travel anywhere instantly. And creating the veil basically broke all of that, causing the elven civilization to collapse overnight and elves to lose their immortality. Tevinter basically picked off the ailing elves after that and yeah....the rest of history has really sucked for them. And apparently every other alternative was WORSE. And for that, he earned the title of Dread Wolf and infamy among the elves.
Unfortunately, this meant Solas woke up into a world "Full of tranquil" and decided he wanted to "fix his mistake", gave the orb(his orb) to Cory and hoped Cory would open it and die in the attempt, thus setting off this whole fiasco. Even better, he had his own spy network in the inquisition and the reason the Qunari conspiracy came to light was because their spies tripped over his spies inside the inquisition. Yeah, the inquisition was riddled with 2 different spy networks. God Fucking Damnit.
Solas cuts off the inquisitor hand to save her, then peaces out saying he's sorry he's gonna need to fuck over the world by removing the veil again and he really doesn't want to but.....has to.....even though he doesn't. I return to the council and given the choice to disband the inquisition or become an Orlesian....pet, that's arguably riddled with spies, I decided to disband. Yes, there's a bunch of problems to deal with, but the inquisition might be at the end of its ability to deal with them.
And with that, the game and inquisition come to a close and everyone wanders off to do their own thing. Varric goes back to run Kirkwall, Cassandra begins rebuilding the seekers(after a short stint advising the divine before she gets tired of it), Josie goes back to Antiva to run the family business with the inquisitor in tow, Cullen takes his doggo and creates a home for retired Templars, Sera....just kinda goes back to being a rogue, Iron bull and the chargers go back to having the time of their lives doing mercenary work, Cole and the minstrel go touring together, Dorian goes back to tevinter to try to root out corruption(and by god tevinter needs it, with the Qunari refocusing on them) and Blackwall goes to be a Warden again.
Though the very last scene shows the Inquisitor, Josie, Leliana, Cassandra and Harding forming their own secret club to track down Solas and stop him somehow, presumably centering on Tevinter. So to sum up: Qunari were preparing for an invasion of the south with a decapitation strike which was foiled and got them to refocus their efforts on Tevinter but that's still a clear and present danger, Solas is apparently calling all the elves in Thedas to him to join his army to make the elves great again and tear down the veil and OMG that's gonna end badly for everyone, we still don't know WHY Red Lyrium is popping up on the surface so much now and it's fucking spreading if the Emprise du Lion is anything to go by and that's a really bad thing. Yeah, there's a lot going on that will need to be addressed by Dreadwolf and by god I hope Bioware doesn't fuck this up.
I'll do another post or two after this after this to parse out my feelings on the whole series before letting this thread die the death it's surely yearning for after fucking months of my rambling. In the meantime, here's a showstopper to see us out, because I wanted to use this earlier and I'm now out of time to use it so here ya go.
So the Council gets off to a poor start, with Ferelden and Orlais taking turns playing Good Cop/Bad Cop at the Inquisitor(though probably not meaning to) and I sympathize when the Inquisitor looks like she's trying to put her head on her desk in frustration. Luckily, what promises to be days or weeks of this is interrupted by something more interesting......MURDER. A dead Qunari is found in the Winter Palace and of course I decide to walk the fuck out of the meeting to go deal with that. He is very much a dead dude with no clue where he came from, but he did leave a convenient blood trail to a nearby room with a functioning Eluvian in it. And of course, we could secure the area and investigate and tell the council, or we we plunge on through....which is exactly what we do because fuck it.
Which narratively is the right decision because inside the Eluvian is the crossroads again, but this one is more like the fade then the one Morrigan showed me in the base game. It suggests the crossroads and the fade are heavily intertwined, and some of things found in the crossroads are suggested to be not physical objects but more abstract things like memories and ideas. For example, at one point you find a chapter of Varric's book marked chapter ???, which he says he never wrote, so apparently that includes objects that have the potential to exist....which is interesting. Also the inquisitors hand is starting to short out and it gets worse over the course of the game, to the point near the end it starts discharging constantly in energy explosions.
Anyway, The crossroads is one of the big differences this DLC has, where the hub is the Winter palace and all excursions out are done via the crossroads to different locations(and a few side locations with good loot guarded by minibosses). What it leads to are a group of Qunari who are using the Crossroads to move around Thedas quietly, working a plot to destabilize thedas using their Gatlock Black Powder by apparently planting explosives in places of leadership all over thedas....by using servants who are secretly following the Qun.
Yeah, that whole thing from DA2 how people are flocking to join the Qun(especially Elves) because they feel it would be a better life for them? And Tallis doing all that stuff for a list of Qunari spies in Orlais? Well, it turns out that's still a problem. Even worse, it turns out a lot of those Qun spies are also members of the inquisition, because when they talked about the Inquisition growing quickly with people joining from all over, nobody was really doing background checks. And to be fair, when I recruited agents out in the field, I wasn't really doing much more then "Hey, want to join? Okay then!"
So yeah, the Inquisition is possibly riddled with spies and infiltrators and to make it even better, apparently the council is kinda pissed because the inquisition didn't bother to tell them about the threat rather than saying "We got this", while under threat of disbandment. Well, technically Orlais is playing the "No, we want to keep the inquisition around.....just under supervision" which an awful lot like the Inquisition would be on a short leash held by Orlais. Josephine is keeping them at bay while I'm off adventuring but clearly she's running out of stalling tactics.
Oh, and to make things more fun, the Qunari see the Inquisitions as agents of Fen'harel/Solas and.....they've kinda got a point. Solas was tight with the inquisition for a quite a while and as revealed later, it's easy to see why the Qunari leader would see that even if it's not technically true. But generally it seems like all the craziness in the South of Thedas convinced the Qunari to make their move and prep an invasion, thwarting which ends up being the main focus on the DLC.
FInally, the Qunari plans are dealt with and they lead me directly to Solas for a goodbye. He explains(and a lot of the dlc collaborates this) things we saw in the base game that the Elven gods were basically powerful elven mages/leaders who came be revered as gods and enslaved many of the other elves(thus the dalish face tattoos). The only good one was apparently Mythal and she was killed(or most her, anyway), which prompted Solas to lead a rebellion against them. He created the veil, which trapped the elven "gods" in the fade, but the problem was the fade and the world were the same(which sounds like it was very, very different) and the entire elven civilization thrived on magic and the fade, elves truly were immortal and eluvians allowed them to travel anywhere instantly. And creating the veil basically broke all of that, causing the elven civilization to collapse overnight and elves to lose their immortality. Tevinter basically picked off the ailing elves after that and yeah....the rest of history has really sucked for them. And apparently every other alternative was WORSE. And for that, he earned the title of Dread Wolf and infamy among the elves.
Unfortunately, this meant Solas woke up into a world "Full of tranquil" and decided he wanted to "fix his mistake", gave the orb(his orb) to Cory and hoped Cory would open it and die in the attempt, thus setting off this whole fiasco. Even better, he had his own spy network in the inquisition and the reason the Qunari conspiracy came to light was because their spies tripped over his spies inside the inquisition. Yeah, the inquisition was riddled with 2 different spy networks. God Fucking Damnit.
Solas cuts off the inquisitor hand to save her, then peaces out saying he's sorry he's gonna need to fuck over the world by removing the veil again and he really doesn't want to but.....has to.....even though he doesn't. I return to the council and given the choice to disband the inquisition or become an Orlesian....pet, that's arguably riddled with spies, I decided to disband. Yes, there's a bunch of problems to deal with, but the inquisition might be at the end of its ability to deal with them.
And with that, the game and inquisition come to a close and everyone wanders off to do their own thing. Varric goes back to run Kirkwall, Cassandra begins rebuilding the seekers(after a short stint advising the divine before she gets tired of it), Josie goes back to Antiva to run the family business with the inquisitor in tow, Cullen takes his doggo and creates a home for retired Templars, Sera....just kinda goes back to being a rogue, Iron bull and the chargers go back to having the time of their lives doing mercenary work, Cole and the minstrel go touring together, Dorian goes back to tevinter to try to root out corruption(and by god tevinter needs it, with the Qunari refocusing on them) and Blackwall goes to be a Warden again.
Though the very last scene shows the Inquisitor, Josie, Leliana, Cassandra and Harding forming their own secret club to track down Solas and stop him somehow, presumably centering on Tevinter. So to sum up: Qunari were preparing for an invasion of the south with a decapitation strike which was foiled and got them to refocus their efforts on Tevinter but that's still a clear and present danger, Solas is apparently calling all the elves in Thedas to him to join his army to make the elves great again and tear down the veil and OMG that's gonna end badly for everyone, we still don't know WHY Red Lyrium is popping up on the surface so much now and it's fucking spreading if the Emprise du Lion is anything to go by and that's a really bad thing. Yeah, there's a lot going on that will need to be addressed by Dreadwolf and by god I hope Bioware doesn't fuck this up.
I'll do another post or two after this after this to parse out my feelings on the whole series before letting this thread die the death it's surely yearning for after fucking months of my rambling. In the meantime, here's a showstopper to see us out, because I wanted to use this earlier and I'm now out of time to use it so here ya go.
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Yeah, I was starting to get the feeling something was going on there. A lot of those reference seemed to be dovetailing suspiciously, especially with the crossroads and the fade seem to be intertwined and spirits were used in the great library which are normally restricted to the fade......
And this begs the question: Where does the blight come from then? Cory says the city was black when they got there. And on a related note, If Lyrium is magical blood of a primal being and that blood is corrupted and showing up in the form of red lyrium all over the fucking place......and very recently, I might add. Also, the fact we know ancient elves worked with dwarves at one point in some of the forgotten thiags and that history has been erased. We know from Valta shaperate history can be erased when it becomes politically inconvenient.
Something big is in the offing and it's gonna be bad. Very bad.
Or as Varric would put it "Well. Shit"
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